Visitors

Filmmaker Godfrey Reggio has developed a resolutely noncommercial and instantly recognizable style. His movies - particularly the trilogy that began in 1982 with "Koyaanisqatsi" - are somber, nonnarrative sequences of images designed to induce a meditative state.

The three films, all featuring hypnotic scores by Philip Glass, examined the troubled relationship between humanity and its environment, both natural and man-made. It's work you could equally well see in an art installation.

In "Visitors," the latest Reggio-Glass collaboration, the emphasis is less on landscapes than on the human face. Individuals and groups, children and adults, are shown in close-up against a plain dark backdrop, looking straight at the audience, sometimes with glimmers of expressions. The parade of visages is occasionally interrupted with shots reminiscent of the trilogy - a Ferris wheel, a moonscape, trees growing in water, and the like.

The starkly minimal presentation of faces has become a staple, even a cliche, of advertising and high-end magazine photographs. The effect of being stared at by someone, or even someone's image, is disquieting - in some cases here, the expressions seem faintly accusatory. But widespread use of the technique has dimmed its effectiveness.

There's very little motion in "Visitors," which offers a mere 74 shots in its 80-minute running time. The sense of stasis, deepened by Glass' trancelike sounds, will not be to everyone's taste. Viewers may find it intriguing to try to puzzle out why this or that particular non-facial image is used. Or they may not.

Reggio has talked about his movies as attempts to bypass the intellect, a "visceral form of cinema" that's "aimed at your solar plexus." But you may experience "Visitors" as more of a sedative than a punch in the guts.

I did like one of Reggio's choices: bookending the movie with perhaps its single most striking image, the face of a gorilla, a handsome animal that's beautifully photographed. As with all else in the movie, you're free to make of this what you will. (By the by, the animal's name is Triska, and she resides in the Bronx Zoo.)